Italian oil and gas company Eni has signed 19 Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) for carbon, capture & storage within the HyNet North West project in the UK.
Eni revealed on Wednesday that the 19 MoUs had been signed with as many companies interested in the opportunity to have their emissions captured, transported and stored in its depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs as part of the HyNet North West project.
Eni UK currently operates Liverpool Bay facilities in the East Irish Sea and the depleted Hewett gas field , located 19 miles off the Norfolk coast, which is currently in its decommissioning phase.
In January 2022 alone, Eni UK has signed six of these agreements. According to Eni, this demonstrates the outstanding interest that the UK industry has shown for the decarbonisation potential offered by the HyNet project, which benefits from the expertise and ideal location of Eni UK’s infrastructure for transportation and storage.
As explained by Eni, once operational, the HyNet North West project will transform one of the most energy-intensive industrial districts in the UK into the world’s first low carbon industrial cluster.
In particular, the project will provide important support to the UK’s decarbonisation process by contributing 100 per cent to the 10 million tons per year of CO2 storage capacity and 80 per cent to the 5GW of low carbon hydrogen Government’s UK-wide targets set for 2030.
The agreements signed to date include hard-to-abate sectors and will play a crucial role in enabling decarbonisation initiatives in the North West of England and North Wales industrial cluster.
In October 2020, Eni UK was awarded a CO2 appraisal and storage license in Liverpool Bay to develop a CO2 storage site. A year later, the HyNet North West Cluster was selected by the UK Government as one of the two priority projects (Track 1 projects) out of five competing in the CCUS Cluster Sequencing Process. The second project was the East Coast Cluster (ECC), led by the Northern Endurance Partnership.
Moreover, Eni UK has recently signed further agreements with Cory, Uniper, and the Cavendish Project to evaluate further solutions in terms of storage for the decarbonisation of the UK’s industrial clusters.